The USDA announced plans to discontinue future Household Food Security reports, ending the annual supplemental survey that, among other things, was used as the government’s official statistic on “food insecurity”. The supplemental survey had been attached to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey each December since the late 1990s, asking households a battery of questions about their access to quality food, anxiety around affording food, and whether they cut back on meals due to a lack of money.

Below I highlight several concerns with the current food security survey, which justify at least pausing it in 2025. This pause would allow USDA to revisit the concept and strengthen its policy relevance. In the interim, alternative data sources already provide insight on food insecurity and related policies.

1. Misrepresents hunger. Despite frequent claims to the contrary—such as the recent Wall Street Journal headline, “Trump Administration Cancels Annual Hunger Survey”—the food security rate does not measure hunger. In fact, no consensus exists on the definition of hunger, nor on how to measure it. Instead, the food security survey assesses a variety of conditions related to access to quality or quantity of food, including anxiety about affording food, not being able to afford the types of food people want, and the more severe, cutting back on food due to a lack of money.
   
   A scientific panel commissioned in 2006 recommended against conflating the concept of hunger with food insecurity, due to the challenges of understanding and measuring hunger. Accordingly, the USDA changed terms in 2006, with low food security reflecting “reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Little or no indication of reduced food intake” (emphasis mine). They also started using the term very low food security, to reflect: “reports of multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.” The condition of “very low food security” therefore, does not precisely measure hunger, although it often serves as a proxy for it. This is because “very low food security” can include people reporting hunger at times because they could not afford food.
   
   Policymakers and the media often conflate these broader food insecurity conditions with hunger, distorting the true picture of hunger in the U.S. For example, when we consider disrupted eating patterns or skipping meals, 4.4 percent of respondents reported being “hungry but didn’t eat because couldn’t afford food” in the 30 days prior to the 2023 survey, and 0.8 percent of households reported child(ren) skipping a meal. However, in recent years outlets such as the Washington Post continued to conflate food insecurity and hunger, reporting the much higher “One in 8 [12.5%] U.S. households struggled with hunger in 2022”.
   
   
2. Lacks policy relevance. Because food insecurity is often conflated with hunger, policymakers frequently call for safety net program expansions in response. However, two issues arise. First, even without consensus on the definition of hunger, it is safe to assume that food insecurity overstates the size and scope of hunger in the U.S. This is because, as shown above, food insecurity includes conditions with “little or no indication of reduced food intake”.
   
   Second, food insecurity is not as strongly correlated with income as commonly assumed. As my colleague Thomas O’Rourke and I showed last year, having an income in the bottom quintile indeed makes food insecurity more likely, but the relationship between food insecurity and income is not straightforward. We found that 25 percent of households reporting food insecurity had incomes in the top three income quintiles, with some food insecure households having annual incomes as high as $100,000 or more. It is unclear why so many middle to high income households would report conditions consistent with food insecurity, but it demonstrates the problems with the measure and raises questions about its policy relevance.
   
   
3. Concept is subjective. A related issue is the subjectivity of the food insecurity questions, which may help explain why the relationship between income and food insecurity is less than straightforward. The questions include phrases such as “couldn’t afford to eat balanced meals” and “we worried food would run out before we got money to buy more”. The concept of “balanced meals” and “worry” is highly subjective to the individual, raising more questions about the policy relevance of food insecurity rates.
   
   
4. Financial incentives encourage the misuse of food insecurity statistics. Many hunger-relief organizations receive substantial public funding, which naturally creates an incentive to conflate food insecurity with hunger, as well as to keep food insecurity highly visible in public and policy discussions. Furthermore, policymakers are incentivized to conflate food insecurity with hunger to justify safety net program expansions. For example, after last year’s food security report, the New York Times editorial board wrote the headline: “No One Should Go Hungry in America” before using food insecurity rates to argue in favor of supporting Feeding America’s fight against hunger.
   
   
5. Survey is redundant. Currently, 11 other government-sponsored surveys collect information on food insecurity from representative samples of American households or individuals, as well as other non-governmental surveys. The government data are publicly available, giving researchers an opportunity to analyze food security data for individuals and households.  For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report in October 2024 using National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data, which found that: “In 2021, 5.9% of adults age 18 and older in the United States experienced family food insecurity, defined as not having consistent, dependable access to a sufficient quality or quantity of food.” The NHIS is planned to continue, as well as many of the other surveys, giving USDA researchers access to other data sources to assess policy-relevant questions about household food security in the U.S.